Count on Tuesday's alignment of the calendar to add some excitement to the lives of at least a few math geeks.

Tuesday is Square Root Day, a rare holiday that occurs when the day andthe month are both the square root of the last two digits of thecurrent year. Numerically, March 3, 2009, can be expressed as 3/3/09,or mathematically as √9 = 3, or 3² = 3 × 3 = 9.

"These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait forthem, then they brighten up your day--and poof--they're gone," RonGordon, a Redwood City, Calif., teacher who organized a contestintended to publicize the event, told the AP. The prize, or course, is $339.

Celebrants are expected to mark the occasion by cutting root vegetablesinto squares or preparing other foods in the shape of the square rootsymbol.

Square Root Day occurs only nine times in a century. The last one occurred on February 2, 2004, and the next will occur in seven years on April 4, 2016.

Square Root Day isn't the only humorous holiday celebrated in the math world.

Pi Day is observed each March 14 (3.14), while Pi ApproximationDay falls on July 22 (roughly equal to 22/7). The first Pi Day wasobserved in 1988 by staff at the San Francisco Exploratorium, whowalked around in circles.

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Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any.

There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.

The ticket pricing structure for the stadiumsalso is generating controversy, as many fans think they're being pricedout of seeing games. Yankees tickets will range from $5 forobstructed-view bleacher seats to $2,625; the Mets' prices will be from$11 to $695 (for opening day and the Yankees series).

"There's been more outrage since people haveseen the ticket prices," deMause says. "People are saying, 'Wait aminute, we're having to pay for some of this and we're going to have topay $200 a ticket or sit behind a foul pole?' "

The affordable seats in good locations are going fast, he adds.

Says Brodsky, "You have a stadium paid for by taxpayers that taxpayers can't afford to get into."

It's a common complaint with new stadiums andunderscores a basic tenet of sports pricing: Teams charge what theythink the public will pay. Team Marketing Report, which conducts anannual survey of ticket prices in baseball, listed the Yankees' averageprice at an MLB-high $72.97, a 76.3% increase from last year. Yankeesgeneral partner Hal Steinbrenner acknowledges "small amounts" of theteam's tickets might be overpriced....

Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any.

There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.

In 1770, Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

In1929, the first Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at theHollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The movie "Wings" won "best production",while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named best actor and actress.

In 1984, comedian Andy Kaufman died in Los Angeles at age 35.

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Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any.

There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.